Late Stories

from 9.95

by Stephen Dixon

The interlinked tales in this collection detail the excursions of an aging narrator navigating the amorphous landscape of grief in a series of tender and often waggishly elliptical digressions. Described by Jonathan Lethem as “one of the great secret masters” of contemporary American literature, Stephen Dixon is at the height of his form in these uncanny and virtuoso fictions.

PRAISE FOR LATE STORIES:"Masterful. [Dixon] considers his health, his sociability, his children, and his career in the fading light of his wife’s memory." —Foreword Reviews

"Why isn't Dixon a household name? […] His writing, which is plainspoken and deceptively straightforward, is the sort that sticks with you, because it cuts to the uncertainty of life […] Dixon is a master of the minor moments, the dreams and the disappointments, that transfigure every one of us."—Kirkus Reviews

PRAISE FOR STEPHEN DIXON:"Mr. Dixon wields a stubbornly plain-spoken style; he loves all sorts of tricky narrative effects. And he loves even more the tribulations of the fantasizing mind, ticklish in their comedy, alarming in their immediacy."—The New York Times

"Dixon’s stories, strengthened by their unity, almost have a novel’s ability to develop character, to suggest a life outside the confines of the plot."—Boston Globe

"Stephen Dixon is one of the great secret masters—too secret. I return again and again to his stories for writerly inspiration, moral support and comic relief at moments of personal misery, and, several times, in a spirit of outright plagiaristic necessity: borrowing a jumpstart from a few lines of Dixon has been a real problem-solver in my own short fiction."—Jonathan Lethem

"Some writers are able, in a mere 200 pages or so, to rewire your circuitry in a way that makes you unfit for your own life. Stephen Dixon is such a writer, and he can do it in a short story as well."—The Los Angeles Times

ABOUT STEPHEN DIXON:Stephen Dixon is the author of several books, including Frog and Interstate, which were nominated for the National Book Award. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, the American Academy Institute of Arts and Letters Prize for Fiction, the O. Henry Award, and a Pushcart Prize.